Blogging this evening from the 360 Primo Coffee Shop in Austin. Back from my my excursion to the North, not having blogged about the trip nearly as much as I thought I would. The memories are still fresh, though, and I might as well try to get some of it down while I can.
First, an explanation of the somewhat cryptic reference to Ledi Sayadaw in this post. There are 4 teachers in the tradition of meditation that is taught by S.N. Goenka in Vipassana Centers all over the world: Goenka was taught by U Ba Khin, who was taught by Saya Thetgyi, who was taught by Ledi Sayadaw. Substantial information about each of these guys is available on the Internet, for example by following the above links. This is of more than merely hagiographic interest because: the meditation that Goenka-ji teaches is an immensely powerful tool for self-knowledge; yet in some cases the accompanying explanations he presents in his nightly videotaped dhamma discourses are — well, it’s neither within my competence or any part of my intention to claim that Goenka-ji distorts the dhamma, but some of the things he says definitely have a unorthodox twist to them. Ledi Sayadaw, on the other hand, was an accomplished scholar and one of the great representatives of Theravada orthodoxy of his time. Which raises the question: Where and how, in the three generations of transmission through lay teachers, did the unique features of Goenka-ji’s teaching arise? A good place to begin investigating this question might be at one of the collections of Ledi Sayadaw’s writings available on the Web; these at the site of the U Ba Khin Memorial Trust, or these at the site of the Association for Insight Meditation. (The latter, BTW, appears to be a one-person labor of love, and has what look like some interesting discussions going on.) For example, you can read Ledi’s treatise on the Four Noble Truths, on the Eightfold Path, or on meditating on the breath. (Warning: that last one’s a PDF file.)
meditation
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